Case Study 1: Implementation of Problem-based Learning at Bahrain Polytechnic

The implementation of a coherent and consistent teaching and learning approach and philosophy was important for Bahrain Polytechnic at the time I was employed. Bahrain Polytechnic was a ‘green fields’ institution and the gap they had identified in both the local education system and the local economy and job market, was a skill set that the higher education system at the time was not addressing. This skill set included for example entrepreneurial skills, critical thinking skills, and communication skills in English.

Bahrain Polytechnic was established to meet the gap in education provision in the Kingdom of Bahrain for applied professional and technical education. The curriculum adopted by Bahrain Polytechnic is specifically designed to provide graduates with the attitude, knowledge and skills that will make them work ready and eminently employable. Bahrain Polytechnic emphasises Work Integrated Learning (WIL) as a key curriculum element in preparing students for the world of work and recognises the importance of a student-centred approach for effective delivery. WIL integrates academic and work-related activities through a Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach designed to promote critical thinking and team work (Coutts, Huijser & Almulla, 2012).

There are many definitions and curriculum manifestations of PBL (Kek & Huijser, 2017; Van Berkel et al., 2010; Barrett & Moore, 2011), but at Bahrain Polytechnic a very simple and flexible definition has been adopted, based on the notion that well-designed work-related problems stimulate learning to ensure that students develop technical knowledge and skills, as well as employability skills (communication, teamwork, problem solving, creativity and initiative). These employability skills have been identified by industry as necessary attributes of a ‘work ready’ graduate.

It was my role at Bahrain Polytechnic to develop a strategy and implementation plan for PBL, and then manage the implementation across the institution, including staff support, professional development, and evaluation of practice.

When I first arrived in 2010, Bahrain Polytechnic had a very diverse academic staff cohort, both in terms of cultural backgrounds and in terms of educational backgrounds.

The initial step in the PBL implementation process was to develop a strategy that would ensure a certain level of consistency across different programmes that were taught at Bahrain Polytechnic. This consistency would have to apply to a constructive alignment (Biggs & Tang, 2011) between learning outcomes, teaching, and assessment practices. The initial strategy included a PBL model that was specifically tailored to the needs and objectives of Bahrain Polytechnic. The model was ultimately approved by the Senior Management Team.

The next important step was to develop an implementation strategy that would engage staff, as well as support them in their own process of changing their teaching approaches. To facilitate this process, I established a PBL Implementation Working Group, who consisted of representatives (and importantly, PBL champions) of each of the faculties. This working group met on a weekly basis to develop resources and plan staff support in the form of professional development and in the form of ‘at the elbow’ support in the implementation process.

The model and the rationale behind PBL implementation were very much based on a thorough research and scholarship base around PBL in other institutions, and in comparable contexts, in particular Singapore. From the beginning I made a very conscious effort to collect evidence and to encourage others to do so as well, with a view of incorporating the scholarship of teaching and learning in their practice, and as a way to stimulate innovative practice (Huijser & Hasan, 2012). This was also a key element in fostering dynamic approaches to PBL implementation, which suited specific disciplinary contexts, as well as linguistic and educational backgrounds.

As noted, Bahrain Polytechnic had a highly diverse cohort of academic staff, as well as a high turnover of academic staff. They were diverse in terms of their national backgrounds, as well as the educational systems they were accustomed to. When we began the process of implementing PBL as the Polytechnic’s primary teaching approach, this created significant concerns for many of the academic staff, because it meant they had to change the way they had always done things. In a sense, we were trying to change their professional identity, or the way in which they viewed themselves, which is quite a profound thing to do, and not surprisingly led to a significant amount of resistance. For this reason, the support for academic staff was a key element of the implementation plan and process (Al Daylami et al., 2015).

I established the PBL Implementation Working Group to provide significant and relevant support for academic staff, including peer support. The faculty-based PBL champions had their ear on the ground in faculties, in terms of what the main concerns were and where we would need to develop resources and support in dynamic ways. This applied both to staff ‘on the ground’ and to programme-level development.

From the beginning, it was clear that we needed distributed buy-in, because central ‘top-down imposition’ was never going to work. Therefore, the working group initiated a process whereby Faculty-based project teams were asked to develop and map their programmes in alignment with the Polytechnic’s PBL model. However, they initially had free reign and complete ownership of the design of these maps. I then organised a series of events in which individual faculties were asked to present and justify their ‘PBL programme maps’. The benefit of this was that, firstly, they felt a sense of control over how this was going to work in their discipline, and secondly, there was an opportunity for immediate peer feedback and review, which then helped to further shape and refine these programme maps.

Following the mapping process, systematic implementation was going to start in earnest, and staff development was a key part of that process. Initially, I organised a series of large, institution-wide workshops, whereby the institutional rationale behind PBL was explained. However, I ensured from the beginning that these sessions were highly interactive, and staff has plenty of opportunities to ask questions and indeed to question the approach itself. Again, imposition was never a viable option.

After the initial period of planning, the PBL Implementation Working Group became the main channel through which educational and staff development was planned, guided and facilitated. In practice, this meant that the PBL champions in the group would identify staff development needs, and we would then respond to these needs and requests as a group, by identifying the best format and the best facilitators for specific workshops, individual sessions, or development of tailored online resources. This was not just a reactive process whereby we only responded to staff development needs as identified by them. There was also very much a proactive element in it, in that we discussed as a groups what would potentially benefit staff and what we should offer to them, in the spirit of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. It is important to realise in this sense that PBL was very new for a significant portion of the Polytechnic’s academic staff.

Again, in terms of distributing knowledge across the institution and beyond, a key part of the strategy was to identify good practice, and to invite staff involved in such practice to model it, to present on it, and to publish about it, both internally and externally. In addition, we worked very closely and deliberately with the Polytechnic’s Industry Liaison team in order to establish and develop working relationships with industry in Bahrain, who of course were key stakeholders in terms of the graduate outcomes of PBL.

Given my role at Bahrain Polytechnic, it was important from the beginning to ensure that I was not seen as ‘the PBL guy’ who was in charge of this, as this would have become a rod for my own back. Instead, I wanted to develop a model of distributed leadership (hence the PBL Implementation Working Group). The other strategy was to ensure that staff did not just see me as an expert in an ivory tower by getting my own hands dirty and modelling good PBL practice.

Thus, I made sure I (co-)developed and taught modules myself to model good practice, and to demonstrate that it could work in a Bahraini context, even with first year students. These modules were continuously evaluated, again to ensure that student learning improved and that the expected learning outcomes were being achieved (Huijser & Wali, 2012). In turn this put my money where my mouth was, and was a powerful way to sway the doubters, along with other such examples from PBL champions and peers. Ultimately, it significantly improved student engagement, which was the most important part.

Al Daylami, M., Bennison, B., Coutts, C., Hassan, F., Hasan, J., Huijser, H., McLoughlin, B., McMaster, D., & Wali, F. (2015). The establishment of Bahrain Polytechnic: Assumptions questioned, myths exposed, and challenges faced. In M. Harmes, H. Huijser, & P. A. Danaher (Eds.). Myths in education, learning and teaching: Policies, practices and principles (pp. 114-132). New York: Palgrave.

Barrett, T., & Moore, S. (2011). An introduction to problem-based learning. In Barrett, T. & Moore S. (Eds.). New approaches to problem-based learning: Revitalising your practice in higher education (pp. 3-17). New York: Routledge.

Coutts, C., Huijser, H. & Almulla, H. (2012). A project management approach to sustainable PBL curriculum design implementation at Bahrain Polytechnic. Refereed Proceedings of the 3^rd International PBL Symposium. Singapore, Republic Polytechnic, 7-9 March 2012.

Huijser, H. & Hasan, J. (2012). Working towards innovative practitioners: Problem based learning at Bahrain Polytechnic. Refereed Proceedings of the 6^th Quality Conference in the Middle East. Dubai, Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University, 30 January-2 February 2012.

Huijser, H. & Wali, F. (2012). A PBL approach to teaching Bahraini Perspectives at Bahrain Polytechnic. Refereed Proceedings of the 3^rd International PBL Symposium. Singapore, Republic Polytechnic, 7-9 March 2012. 

Van Berkel, H., Scherpbier, A., Hillen, H., & van der Vleuten (Eds.) (2010). Lessons from problem-based learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.